An increasing number of wireless communications devices or mobile devices have Global Positioning System (GPS) chipsets that provide current location data which may be used for various navigation applications.
Transmitting the current location data from one mobile device to another enables one mobile user to follow another mobile user. In a similar vein are covert GPS tracking devices that are meant to be attached to a target's vehicle without the knowledge and consent of the target. These covert devices provide only static location updates, either automatically (i.e. periodically) or upon remote request. In a “consensual” tracking scenario, the leader may periodically send his GPS coordinates to the follower to enable the follower to plot the static position data using a mapping application. However, due to the time lag in generating, transmitting and mapping the position data, by the time the second mobile user sees the “current” location of the first mobile user, the location is no longer “current”. This is particularly problematic when the second mobile user is following the first mobile user at high speed, such as in their respective cars or other vehicles, in which case the time lag between updates may make it difficult to follow the first mobile user. This problem is further exacerbated in densely populated urban areas where the density of roads makes it less apparent which route or routes need to be taken in order to reach the most recently received location update of the first mobile user. Although one solution might appear to entail more frequent position updates, this would undesirably burden the onboard processors of both the sender's and recipient's devices, not to mention using up valuable wireless bandwidth with the extra over-the-air transmissions.
With the increasing popularity of mobile navigation applications, further improvements to mobile tracking technology remain highly desirable.
It will be noted that throughout the appended drawings, like features are identified by like reference numerals.